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Obama's father forced out at Harvard

The university was concerned about his personal life and finances, records reveal. | AP Photo

By ASSOCIATED PRESS | 4/29/11 8:58 PM EDT

BOSTON — President Barack Obama’s father was forced to leave Harvard University before completing his Ph.D. in economics because the school was concerned about his personal life and finances, according to newly public immigration records.

Harvard had asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to delay a request by Barack Hussein Obama Sr. to extend his stay in the U.S., “until they decided what action they could take in order to get rid of him,” immigration official M.F. McKeon wrote in a June 1964 memo.

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Harvard administrators, the memo stated, “were having difficulty with his financial arrangements and couldn’t seem to figure out how many wives he had.”

An earlier INS memo from McKeon said that while the elder Obama had passed his exams and was entitled on academic grounds to stay and complete his thesis, the school was going to try and “cook something up to ease him out.”

“They are planning on telling him that they will not give him any money, and that he had better return to Kenya and prepare his thesis at home,” the memo stated.

In May 1964, David D. Henry, director of Harvard’s international office, wrote to Obama to say that, while he had completed his formal course work, the economics department and the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences didn’t have the money to support him.

“We have, therefore, come to the conclusion that you should terminate your stay in the United States and return to Kenya to carry on your research and the writing of your thesis,” Henry’s letter stated.

Obama’s request for an extended stay was denied by the INS. He left Harvard and - divorced from president’s mother - returned to his native Kenya in July 1964. He did not complete his Ph.D.

The immigration memos, contained in the elder Obama’s Immigration and Naturalization file, were given to a Boston Globe reporter in 2009 through a Freedom of Information request. The papers were first made public Wednesday by The Arizona Independent, a weekly newspaper. The Associated Press obtained copies of them on Friday.

Harvard issued a statement Friday saying that it could not find in its own records anything to support the accounts given in the INS memos.

“While we cannot verify accounts of conversations that occurred nearly 50 years ago, a review of our existing files did not find any support for either the language or the implied intent described by the U.S. government official in the government documents,” the statement read.

When Obama was attending Harvard, the school faced serious constraints in financing research by international graduate students, the university also said.

Concerns about Obama’s personal life while he had been studying in the U.S. had been raised previously, according to the INS documents.

In 1961, while he was an undergraduate student at the University of Hawaii, the school’s foreign student adviser called an immigration official and said Obama had recently married StanleyAnn Dunham - the president’s mother - despite already having a wife in Kenya.

According to a memo written by an INS official in Honolulu, the adviser said Obama had been “running around with several girls since he first arrived here and last summer she cautioned him about his playboy ways.”

Obama told the adviser that he had divorced his wife in Kenya.

He told the president’s mother the same thing, though she would later learn it was a lie.

Obama worked for an oil company and as a government economist after returning to Africa, but his personal and professional life would later deteriorate. He died in a car crash in 1982, when the future president was 21 and a student at Columbia University.

As a Harvard graduate I can say that this sort of racist attitude has been part of Harvard's history. While the college tried hard to change its approach with scholarships for all students accepted for admission deep in the Ivy League institution is the attitude of religious, ethnic, and racial superiority.

What a great opportunity for the President, Harvard, and the country to further this discussion.

Our president's biography is not tainted and there are no secrets. If there were, I am sure the Republicans would have exploited them by now. What his father did, or didn't do have no bearing on the character of President Obama. You guys are just so mad that you cannot get anything on him. Too bad. He is a good man and a good family man....people still like him personally even if they disagree with his policies. You will never have anything on HIM, his wife or his kids. He is better than every republican in America combined.

While the college tried hard to change its approach with scholarships for all students accepted for admission deep in the Ivy League institution is the attitude of religious, ethnic, and racial superiority.

Woudn't bigamy be considered a violation of the University's moral code of conduct, especially back in the 60's?

Dr. Dan- the man was a predator. Did you not see that a letter had been sent from the parents of the woman he married- Ruth- begging for help against the predator that was stalking their young adult? And what about the child- looks to have been a high school student- that he apparently was having a relationship with and took to France for a "blank". That woman was black by the way. While in Hawaii, with a pregnant wife or girlfriend (Obama's mom) he was stalking enough young women that the college noticed his behavior. This is not normal behavior and unless you agree with this maltreatment of women you'll stop justifying Obama seniors disgusting and predatory behaviors. It's not P. Obama's fault and of course son's aren't stained with the sins of their fathers but for you to try to excuse this behavior with racism is inexcusable.

Barack Obama’s brother Samson was refused entry into the UK last year after being accused of an attempted sex attack on a young teen girl. He traveled to America with his family for the Obama Inauguration in January.

Samson Obama, the brother of US President Barack Obama, traveled to Washington DC by boarding a connecting flight to the US from East Midlands after being refused entry into Great Britain. (News of the World)

Samson Obama — one of the president’s 11 half-brothers and sisters — is alleged to have been living illegally in Britain when he was arrested in Berkshire last November. A group of girls, one aged 13, told police a man approached them and followed them into a cafe a mile from the home of Samson Obama’s mother in Bracknell.

Obama, 41, was questioned by Thames Valley Police for several hours, during which his fingerprints and a DNA sample were taken. He is alleged to have told detectives that he was Henry Aloo, a genuine asylum-seeker, but gave the address of his own mother, Kezia. Obama denied any sexual assault, but is reported to have accepted an official caution for a public order offense. A caution is an admission of a criminal offense. Police were reported to have also discovered that Obama had been living illegally in Britain for seven years.

Obama was refused permission to re-enter Britain at Heathrow in January while travelling from his home in Kenya to Washington for his brother’s inauguration. An immigration officer used his discretionary powers to allow him to remain “airside” in the terminal overnight before catching his connecting flight to Washington.

Obama’s half brother Samson Obama was not allowed into the UK this week again after being accused of a serious crime on his earlier visit. The BBC reported:

Barack Obama’s half-brother was denied entry to the UK after being accused of a serious crime on an earlier visit, the Home Office has confirmed.

Samson Obama, who lives in Kenya, was on his way to the US presidential inauguration in January when he was stopped at East Midlands Airport.

According to the News of the World, fingerprint tests linked him to an alleged sex attack on a British girl.

He was questioned but not charged over the incident in Berkshire, it added.

A Home Office spokesman said Samson Obama was denied a visa after immigration officers noticed one of his documents was false. That led them to further inquiries.

Samson Obama, who runs a mobile phone shop outside Nairobi, had been planning to make a short break in the UK on his way to Washington.

He eventually took a connecting flight to the US without formally entering the UK.

This is what the conservative movement has become reduced to -- relying on supposition, innuendo, and supermarket rag gossip to fill the void created by their inability to discuss substantive matters in a civil, rational manner.

Most of the things written were outright fantasy by Obama according to what has been released by the Freedom of Information Act.

You'd really be more credible if you didn't make things up. The FOIA does not apply to the records of a private citizen. The FOIA covers only documents controilled by the US government. Obama's parent's relationship and divorce aren't on the list.